Jung Kook Lets a Zipper Count In the Final Chapter of Calvin Klein’s Fall Denim Story

Renell Medrano directs the third Feel the Fit film, where a zipper cues the beat and Jung Kook dances his way through the 90s Straight and the Baggy.

The first sound in the film is not a drum. It is the rasp of a fly being pulled shut, and everything after it moves on that cue. Calvin Klein released the third chapter of its Fall 2026 “Feel the Fit” denim campaign on September 16, and the brand handed it to the ambassador it has leaned on longest in this era: Jung Kook of BTS. The premise is simple and physical. He pulls on a pair of jeans, the energy in the room changes, and the choreography takes over from there.

 

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Signal. What happened: Calvin Klein unveiled the third chapter of its Fall 2026 Feel the Fit denim campaign, starring global brand ambassador Jung Kook, on September 16, 2026. Exact object: a campaign film and stills directed and photographed by Renell Medrano, featuring the 90s Straight Jean in washes from deep indigo to warm mid blue and the ultra loose Baggy Jean in a classic medium blue wash, set to “My Prerogative” and “Cut the Cake.” When and where: a global launch on September 16 across Calvin Klein retail and high impact out of home placements. Source: Calvin Klein’s own release, distributed through PR Newswire. Why it matters: it closes a three chapter fall rollout that Calvin Klein built around movement and music, and it lands in the same year Jung Kook released his first design collide with the brand and returned to stadiums with BTS.

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Calvin Klein’s rel frames the whole thing around the confidence of a good fit, which is exactly the kind of line every denim brand writes every season. What separates this one is how literally the film takes it. The fit is not described. It is performed, and the performer is someone whose day job already involves translating a beat into the body in front of tens of thousands of people.

Jung Kook’s own statement for the campaign is short and plain. He talks about years of wearing the brand and says, “There’s something about the fit and attitude that really resonates with me.” He adds that bringing that feeling to life through music and movement made the shoot especially fun, which, given the concept, is less a throwaway than a description of the brief.

Jung Kook in Calvin Klein’s Fall 2026

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The soundtrack is the most interesting choice in the chapter. Calvin Klein’s release says the film is set to the rhythms of “My Prerogative” and “Cut the Cake,” and names them by title only. The titles point in two directions at once. “My Prerogative” is the 1988 Bobby Brown single that became one of the defining records of new jack swing, a song built entirely on the idea of doing things your own way. “Cut the Cake” is the title track of Average White Band‘s 1975 album, a tight, horn driven funk record from the Scottish group behind “Pick Up the Pieces.”

The brand has not said which recordings or versions appear, and “My Prerogative” in particular has lived more than one life, including a well known 2004 cover by Britney Spears. What the pairing signals either way is clear enough. One track is swagger and self possession; the other is pure groove. A dancer of Jung Kook’s training can move between the two without the edit feeling forced, and the zipper sound that opens the spot works as a kind of count in before the first bar hits.

It also fits a pattern across the whole fall campaign. The first chapter, starring Tate McRae, was directed by Carlijn Jacobs with choreography by Sergio Reis and ran on Deee-Lite‘s “Groove Is in the Heart,” as a detailed campaign review at The Impression laid out. Calvin Klein has reached into dance floor history for its denim this season rather than toward whatever was trending on streaming charts the week the film was cut.

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For the final chapter, Calvin Klein put the camera in the hands of Renell Medrano, who both directed the film and photographed the stills. Medrano is a Dominican American photographer and director raised in the Bronx, and she came up through Parsons School of Design, where her senior thesis series “Untitled Youth” first drew attention.

Her résumé runs heavily through music. She shot the cover for Kendrick Lamar‘s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers and has photographed album art for ASAP Ferg, H.E.R., Justin Bieber and Chaka Khan. That background matters here. A campaign whose entire premise is a beat dropping when the jeans go on needs someone who knows how musicians carry themselves when the music is actually playing, not just how they pose between takes.

Medrano’s work is also rooted in New York in a very specific way. Her personal projects have returned again and again to the Bronx and to the Dominican Republic, and her portraiture tends to look loose and lived in rather than lacquered. For a brand founded in New York in 1968, and one whose most famous denim imagery has always traded on intimacy, that is a sensible match.

The choice is one of three distinct director picks across the season. Carlijn Jacobs handled Tate McRae’s chapter; Aidan Zamiri directed the second, starring Sadie Sink, which Calvin Klein’s own rel described as following her through everyday scenes. Each chapter got its own eye, with the jeans as the constant.

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Feel the Fit was always designed as a sequence. The Tate McRae chapter went live on August 25 and promised a lineup of global talent rolling out over the following month. Sadie Sink followed on September 1, and her release closed with a note that the final chapter was still to come. Jung Kook’s arrived on September 16.

Read in order, the three films split the same idea three ways. McRae’s chapter treats a pair of jeans as the switch that flips a performer on. Sink’s chapter is quieter and more domestic. Jung Kook’s brings it back to full choreography, with the zipper doing the job a hi hat would normally do.

There is a small difference in how the finale was pushed out. The first two chapters were announced by Calvin Klein, Inc. through Business Wire with the PVH corporate framing, and both listed calvinklein.com and social platforms among their launch channels. The Jung Kook rel carried a New York and Bengaluru dateline through PR Newswire and names Calvin Klein retail and high impact out of home placements as the launch channels. It is a narrower list on paper, though a campaign fronted by one of the most followed artists in the world is not short of social reach.

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The product story in chapter three is tight: two fits. The 90s Straight Jean is described as a classic silhouette redefined for fall, offered in washes running from deep indigo to a warm mid blue and styled in the campaign with light fall layers. The Baggy Jean is the looser of the two, cut ultra loose and oversized for movement, in a classic medium blue wash.

That second description reads almost like a production note. If the film asks someone to dance hard in denim, the brand needs a jean that lets him. The Baggy is the answer to that practical problem as much as a trend call.

It is worth noting what the lineup leaves out compared with the first two chapters. McRae’s and Sink’s releases both featured the Low Rise Baggy Jean and the High Rise Loose Jean alongside the 90s Straight. Jung Kook’s chapter narrows to the 90s Straight and a Baggy Jean without the low rise qualifier, which points to the menswear side of the fall range, though Calvin Klein has not broken the assortment down in those terms.

The 90s Straight is the thread that runs through every chapter, and through Jung Kook’s entire time with the brand. It was among the pieces he wore in his very first Calvin Klein campaign in 2023.

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Calvin Klein first named Jung Kook a global brand ambassador in March 2023, covering Calvin Klein Jeans and Calvin Klein Underwear. That debut campaign was shot in black and white by Park Jong Ha and featured the 90s Straight denim, Body Jeans, a relaxed denim shirt and an oversized denim jacket. It was his first solo brand partnership.

The relationship has only deepened since. In February 2026, Calvin Klein rel a Spring 2026 denim campaign with Jung Kook directed and shot by Mert Alas, which leaned into 90s ref and included a cameo from New York actor Rosie Perez. Dance was already central there too.

Then in May came the bigger step. Jung Kook for Calvin Klein, billed as his first fashion collaboration, arrived as a limited 20 style men’s and women’s capsule built around his love of motorcycles. It reworked underwear and key denim, including the 90s trucker jacket, the 90s Straight and the low rise Baggy, with racing stripes, distressed accents, hidden embroidery and custom washes. Alasdair McLellan shot the biker themed campaign. Calvin Klein global brand president David Savman called the pairing “two cultural forces at full power.”

Set against that history, the Feel the Fit chapter is a return to fundamentals. After a capsule where Jung Kook shaped the product himself, this film puts him back in the brand’s core fits and asks him to do what he does best.

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Japan has been a real stage for this partnership. Calvin Klein opened its global flagship in Harajuku on August 29, 2025, a three story, 1,315.5 square meter store at 4-31-10 Jingumae in Shibuya where denim takes center stage, a choice the brand tied directly to the importance of denim in Japanese culture.

When the Jung Kook for Calvin Klein capsule launched, that store became the setting. On June 4, 2026, the Harajuku flagship was transformed with a motorcycle at the entrance, racetrack markings on the floor and an oversized helmet housing the DJ booth, with the third floor left open to the public through June 11. Harajuku was also one of the three flagships, alongside SoHo and the Champs-Élysées, that Calvin Klein named in its capsule rollout.

The timing of the fall chapter also overlaps with the busiest stretch of Jung Kook’s career in years. BTS released Arirang, their first full studio album since 2020, on March 20, 2026, and the Arirang World Tour opened in Goyang on April 9. It marks the group’s return to live shows after all seven members completed their mandatory service, and it runs into March 2027 across Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania, with more than 80 dates.

For Calvin Klein, that means the final Feel the Fit film lands while its star is performing in stadiums on multiple continents. The campaign’s thesis, that the right jeans change how a person moves, has rarely had a better real world demonstration than a performer coming off a North American stadium run.

The zipper still gets the first word. Jung Kook gets everything after it.